Guild Wars 2 Wiki Guide

Arah: Seer path

Primarily found in the Jotun path. Hits quickly for high damage in melee. When killed, will split into two Lesser Oozes, which will attempt to move towards each other to recombine. If allowed to recombine, the Lesser Oozes will return as a full-health Vile Ooze.

Illusionist: Fires a long-lasting beam on a single target that deals moderate damage per tick and inflicts vulnerability. Also summons Chaos Storms which inflict multiple conditions. Probably the most dangerous type of Risen in this dungeon and should always be prioritized.

Elementalist: Primarily attacks by throwing a spread of green wheels that fly out and return, dealing damage both ways. Individual hits from the wheels do minor damage, but getting hit by the entire spread going out and back will deal massive damage, making melee impractical. Can be killed very quickly by using reflect skills.

Mage: Summons water geysers that tick moderate damage to players inside the circle, and heals other Risen mobs. Also creates a symbol that deals heavy damage to players in melee range. Second-highest priority target after Illusionists.

Plague Bearer: Found primarily in the Mursaat path. Suicides on players for low damage, spawning a large number of non-elite Risen Grubs that spam projectile attacks for negligible damage. Grubs are a low threat, but concentrated fire can slowly add up to eventually down a player.

Dominated Risen are found only in the Mursaat path. They tend to be friendly with and accompanied by Inquest mobs.

Deadeye: Targets a single player and fires a single unblockable knockdown projectile for massive damage. The shot is telegraphed by a red reticule under the player as a well as a lightning beam effect (which deals no actual damage) followed by the actual shot about two seconds later. A "Challenged" debuff will appear on targeted players as well, which can be used to help spot the lock-on and time dodges. Should be prioritized if fighting, and watched carefully if skipping.

Berserker: Attacks using the warrior's axechain:Chop. Deals steady, moderate damage in melee, but is easily kited or skipped.

Defiler: Surrounded by a constant poison cloud that poisons players and deals steady low damage. Attacks by throwing a spread of axes similar to the ranger's Splitblade attack. Range is basically mandatory for these mobs.

Usually accompanied by Dominated Risen. Attacks with a stun beam that rapidly pulses stun on players for a long period of time. Deal very little damage, but the extremely long stun duration means that players without an instant-cast stability skill like "Stand Your Ground!" are likely to be downed by other Risen mobs in the process.

The Giganticus Lupicus is a boss common to every route in Arah's explorable mode, located at the midpoint of each route. The fight takes place in a large circular area. Giganticus Lupicus has 3 phases and requires coordination and a good team setup with high toughness, vitality and defensive traits. During transition, Giganticus Lupicus will briefly turn invulnerable to signal the imminent start of each new phase and it is important that all team members react accordingly to avoid a bad start. Ranged weapons are preferable during most of the fight but melee weapons can help during phase 1. Using vitality or endurance food and exotic gear will increase your chance of success. Remember to slot gear, traits and utilities according to which phase the group is having difficulty with. If the group has difficulty consistently downing grubs in Phase 1, stun breaks and stability will help players get back on their feet to add damage to it.

Phase 1

In phase 1, Giganticus Lupicus spawns two different kinds of adds. A Locust Swarm which he spawns regularly and a less common Risen Grub. Locust Swarms are fairly fragile elite enemies that cause bleeding and do high melee damage, especially if allowed to accumulate in numbers. However, the main mechanic of this phase is based around the Risen Grub.

Once every few seconds Giganticus Lupicus will randomly target one player with a green plague aura, telegraphing the attack with an elaborate flourish that raising his hand over his head. At this point, the attack can be dodged. The appropriate time to do so is cued by Giganticus Lupicus' hand reaching the peak of his flourish. If not dodged, after a few seconds the player will be knocked down and a Risen Grub will appear on the position of the targeted player. If left untouched for a few seconds the Risen Grub will quickly move to Giganticus Lupicus where it will grow and be devoured. If the grub spawns close to Lupicus (from a player attempting to melee Lupicus), it may be devoured instantly. This will give Giganticus Lupicus stacks of armor and power for each Risen Grub eaten, making the deadliest phase of the battle that much harder. Individually, players can learn to recognize the distinctive plague aura and call out their status if the team is on voice chat. Resist the urge to leave the stack for any reason if so targeted. If anything, place yourself in melee range just in front of other players.

It is absolutely vital that this doesn't happen. Once a Risen Grub spawns, it must be killed within a few seconds. The grub is a normal mob and does not have much health, but it can be hard for the targeted player to do so without expending a stability or stun break to come out of knockdown. This requirement must be balanced with dealing damage to Giganticus Lupicus himself - the more slowly he is killed, the more times the grub mechanic must be dealt with. Most groups stack closely at a position within 1200 missile range of Lupicus. This results in a constant stream of damage to the main boss while making all the grubs spawn more or less on top of the party where it can be quickly dealt with. One simple and unambiguous way to do this is to have all party members call target and attack grubs as soon as they appear before retargeting Lupicus. Many classes can continue to hit Lupicus with white attacks while using ground targeted AoE and utilities to damage grubs and swarms without the hassle of retargeting. Another is to devote one or two members of the party to clearing both locust swarms full time with melee weapons and spiking down grubs as they appear. Warriors with the Fast Hands minor trait could easily do both.

It is also important that the party to kill locust swarms as necessary, not letting more than one or two accumulate. Locust swarms do enough damage that they can easily down a player and the resulting need to rez may snowball into disaster. Regardless, Risen Grubs should always have priority.

As noted, the grub spawning attack can be dodged - the appropriate time is when his hand reaches the peak of his flourish. If the entire party can do this reliably, this opens up the option of meleeing Lupicus during this phase, greatly increasing damage output. Under these conditions, summoned locust swarms are likely to be downed naturally before they can cause much damage. Of course, an error in evading the maggot spawn would result in the grub being eaten immediately. At melee range, Lupicus will add a highly damaging kick to his skill rotation that will need to be avoided as well.

Phase 2

Once the boss goes down to about 75% health he will go into phase 2 - the most difficult phase for most parties. Staying at maximum range is a commonly suggested tactic within Arah groups, for both phase two and three, however it can be argued that these phases are actually most easily completed in melee. Skills and traits that help with endurance regeneration or grant vigor, or endurance-restoring food, such as Bowls of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew will help significantly for more fragile party members. Abilities with invulnerability frames such as blocks or dodge attacks, Aegis granting abilities and anti-projectile abilities will be invaluable here.

Before Giganticus Lupicus goes into phase 2 he will turn invulnerable for a few seconds, after which he will throw an unavoidable grub at one player randomly, then immediately go into one of his attack patterns, making it difficult to kill said grub while players scatter in an attempt to avoid the attacks. There are two ways to deal with this in order to avoid allowing Lupicus to eat the grub. If there is a ranger or mesmer in the party, he should send in the pet and/or clones in to attack Lupicus PRIOR to his becoming invulnerable; Lupicus appears to throw the grub at closer targets more often. Once Lupicus goes invulnerable, shatter the clones or swap the pet, eliminating Lupicus' target altogether and preventing the grub from spawning at all. If the group does not have a mesmer or ranger or this strategy does not work due to random chance, the group should remain stacked and either activate stability through skills like "Stand Your Ground!" or Hallowed Ground, or be prepared to bring stun breaks. Once the grub spawns, the group should focus on killing it and any remaining locust swarms. If Lupicus does his single projectile or projectile spray attacks, a guardian or mesmer should activate Shield of Absorption or Feedback to negate it, allowing the party more time to kill the grub.

After dealing with the grub, be prepared to dodge around a lot while fighting Lupicus. There are three mechanics during phase 2:

A shadow walk attack that knocks down on hit and targets a single player.

A basic single-target projectile blast targeted at nearby players.

A large AoE barrage.

A single large swipe with his right arm.

The shadow walk attack is one Giganticus Lupicus casts every few seconds. It lets Giganticus Lupicus quickly move to a certain player and perform a knockdown on hit. During the shadow walk Giganticus Lupicus turns mostly transparent and fires a plague projectile, teleporting to the plague once it reaches its destination. The basic defense against this attack is, of course, to dodge away. However, it is almost impossible to rely solely on dodging since his shadow attacks and projectiles will quickly wear down players without the vitality or toughness to survive getting hit by these attacks.

The second mechanic, the projectile blast is a single target attack that will regularly target any nearby players. It is telegraphed but very quick. However, it can be avoided without a dodge by switching directions.

The third mechanic of phase 2 is a multiple AoE projectile barrage that Giganticus Lupicus casts between shadow walks. This is by far the deadlier of his three attacks and the one that results in most parties wiping. The attack poses a threat over an extreme amount of space - well beyond that implied by its red circles - as well as time with projectiles (and red circles) appearing in at least two waves. It is also highly damaging with each shot dealing 8k or more damage. The success of the party hinges on its understanding of the attack and how to mitigate it. This attack is telegraphed by Giganticus Lupicus gathering green death energy and releasing a swarm of projectiles from a point above his head. The projectiles have significant flight time and will land in the red circles roughly in the order they appear and with damage generally radiating outwards from him over time. The more grubs are allowed through during phase 1, the longer and deadlier phase 2 will be.

To begin with, while the attack does produce red AoE warning circles, they cannot currently be relied upon. It is possible that, as projectiles, they hit players not inside the landing zone while weaving. It is possible that not all of the red circles that should be rendered are actually rendered. Regardless, even if standing outside of red circles when the shots land, you will regularly be struck anyway. In other words, passive defense by positioning outside of the AoE circles is ineffective as a defense. Rather than deciding where to dodge, the key is knowing when to dodge and avoid damage through the use of the dodge's invulnerability frames. Avoid the attack by being invulnerable when it hits rather than trying to avoid it by not being where it hits; at this point it is very difficult to judge the latter. Nevertheless, being outside of the red circles may get you out of trouble and is certainly better than standing defenselessly within one. For full effectiveness, do not panic and wait for the second wave of circles to appear. Unless you are very close to Lupicus, the projectiles will take some time in flight.

If Lupicus' target can survive, many players can spend the fight without direct contact with Lupicus and suffer only from his projectile attacks, making the damage they do the effective measure of health. It is rare for Lupicus to down players in a single hit unless projectiles overlap or too many grubs were let slip, on the other hand only the toughest characters could expect to survive more than four hits. For a more forgiving if lengthier fight, slotting enough toughness and vitality to survive two or three blasts is adviseable. As projectiles, the attack can be mitigated with any abilities that block or destroy projectiles - most notably the Guardian's Reflection Field. Any ability or weapon that grants invulnerability moves such as blocks, Mesmer's sword, Mist Form. Necromancer's death shroud will also effectively tank the attack with a pile of hitpoints but life force will need to be restored between uses. Teleportation skills can be used to get out of the danger zone (remember to get well away). Rallying and resurrection during this phase is very risky but nevertheless should be done - by a single player without direct shadow walk aggro from Lupicus. If party members are going down consistently, consider slotting ranged resurrection skills. If you are going down consistently, perhaps due to being Lupicus' designated hate target, there are foods to increase downed life that can greatly expand the window of opportunity for teammates to get to you. Finally, any abilities or consumables that increase endurance recovery are also useful.

Contrary to the general inclination to keep your distance, however, the best and easiest strategy for dealing with Lupicus in Phase 2 is simply to engage him in melee. Lupicus will not do his knockdown teleport if all potential targets are close to him, and his single projectile has a minimum range and will miss on anyone close to him. This means your party only needs to worry about dodging the melee swipe and the projectile spray, the latter of which can easily be negated by guardians or mesmers with projectile-blocking skills. Feedback will deal massive damage to Lupicus, while Shield of the Avenger will effectively give the party a long window where the only attack they need to worry about is the melee swipe. A group with moderate levels of DPS, a guardian, and a mesmer can easily DPS Lupicus through his second phase well before all projectile blocks are expended.

Phase 3

Once the boss goes down to about 50% health he will go into phase 3.

During phase 3 Giganticus Lupicus will start to attack players more directly and gains a lot of smaller spells listed below. Fortunately, this phase is much less difficult than the previous, though it can still be very dangerous if players draw too close.

An AoE poison projectile from phase 2. As before, this is easily avoided simply by sticking close.

A small poison AoE field that he places in front of him -- Lupicus will create a 'bubble' that traps its targets, knocks them down repeatedly and heavily damages them; with Stability and/or a stun break, this will basically be a guaranteed kill on most players caught in it. Note that this attack CANNOT be dodged or blocked. It is also worth noting that Lupicus ONLY does this attack on moving targets.

A small missile barrage that he casts in front of him.

A conal life-drain attack with a "sucking" animation. Hits multiple times over a long duration, making it difficult to dodge, but it can be avoided by dodging twice with a small delay in between. The easiest way to avoid this move is to stay close to Lupicus and roll through him when he starts it.

A huge point blank AoE life steal spell, healing him 2000-3000 per second per player.

Again, the easiest way to deal with Lupicus in this phase is, contrary to common sense, to melee him. Of his attacks, the most difficult to avoid are the projectile and the conal lifesteal, both of which are easily avoided at melee range simply by rolling through him (or in the case of the projectile, simply by not moving). Similarly, if the party remains stationary, Lupicus will never do his bubble attack, meaning that the only attacks you really need to worry about is the projectile barrage and the AOE lifesteal. The former can be reflected or rolled through, while the latter can be avoided by turning and running during the long startup and rolling to get out of the area of effect once the red circle appears.

Lupicus tends to lock on to one player specifically during this phase; who he targets is mostly random, but he will remain focused on one target for a fairly long time once locked on, which you can use to your advantage. If party members are downed, the player being targeted by Lupicus can pull him away, allowing others time to revived downed teammates. It is recommended that said player either turns and runs (as opposed to backing away), which will make it easier to avoid being caught by Lupicus' AOEs, or in the case of more confident and experienced players, to solo him using the method described above.

This path has you collecting blood stones at shrines of the 5 gods along with some tough undead trash groups and fun 'Frogger' halls. Note that this path is considerably longer than most dungeons in GW2, so be prepared for a long challenge.

Having a sturdy group and solid condition removal (and boon removal on some trash groups) is ideal. This is a very long dungeon path with more chests than the average dungeon and two very challenging boss fights that have a long run from waypoint.

Use any advantage to your disposal. Having exotic gear, potions of undead slaying and food suited to your playstyle make the dungeon easier.

The first boss is fairly straightforward if you've done other dungeons. Balthazar's statue is activated by killing the hounds in the area, then placing the fire they drop on the torches around the statue. Against the priest of Balthazar, avoid firestorms that drop periodically and watch his great sword spin.

To activate Melandru's statue, use the buckets of poison on the stumps in the nearby rooms. The second deity fight involves trees that root nearby players in a room with 'oozes' (flashing balls) that randomly move around. Getting struck by one knocks you down with some damage and a poison. Note that there are some spots where oozes never go. Find them and stand here while you kill the boss. The fight can be easier if one person with reasonable DPS kills the trees and another person kites the gorillas (they respawn every 30 seconds) in an area away from the other members. The 3 remaining members can safely focus on killing the boss.

As the community put it, this boss is basically "a really big mesmer". She will periodically summon three clones, and shatter them almost immediately, giving stacks of confusion on anyone in range of explosion. Be sure you can cleanse the 25 stacks of confusion you may get or be sure to not attack. She will occasionally turn one party member into a moa, but otherwise have slow autoattacks and isn't particularly difficult.

To open the doors to the following rooms, your party will have to carry an orb of light from one receptacle to another identical container by the door at the end of the room. The orb damages whoever carries it, and it's lost if the carrier is downed. While carrying the orb, players will get an environmental weapon skill that allows them to throw the orb, and whoever is hit by the trajectory of the orb will receive it. This allows players to pass it like a 'hot potato' while running to the other receptacle.

Note that when using the skill, players with "Fast-Cast Ground Targeting" deactivated will get an AoE indicator, but the skill is actually a projectile, and will not hit those within the AoE, but those in the trajectory of the thrown orb. In addition, a mesmer can speed things up quite a bit by placing a portal at the end point and portaling about halfway through the last run, which will lead to Giganticus Lupicus.

Activating Grenth's statue requires killing the Elite Wraith first, so clear the room of mobs carefully beforehand. There are 5 runes in the room (Grenth-esque looking markings on the floor), and it is best if the mobs are cleared beforehand. Mechanically, the Wraith will attack the party, but he will only stay so long before teleporting to one of the runes. The simplest way is to have one person stay within each rune while the wraith teleports around. He will reset if the rune he is teleporting to is empty or if he gets knocked off a rune.

The Wraith always follows a set order. If you are standing in the middle rune while facing the undead wraith, the order goes: (starting position)/East, right/South, left/North, behind/West, middle. Then he will go back to the starting position in front. There is a short period of time when he first teleports in which he has to be "aggroed" or else he will reset. There are two approaches to killing him. If your group is coordinated enough, you can have people leave their runes as long as the rune he is occupying and going to teleport to are ready for aggro (to take damage from him in melee range or to hit him and damage him). Alternatively, stationing one person at each rune could also provide to be useful, so long as each member of the party is able to survive both the Wraith and the trash mobs (two random Risen) that he periodically spawn.

After the undead wraith is killed, the Grenth statue will activate. The priest of Grenth can't be damaged. Instead, the priest will spawn another undead wraith which the group can kill. It is no longer necessary to stand on a specific rune. Each wraith places a debuff on one party member randomly that will down him instantly after expiration, but should the wraith be killed, the buff will dissipate. Using a skill granting invulnerability, such as the mesmer's sword 2, or double-dodging, just before the buff ends will prevent you to get downed. The priet's health will decrease everytime one wraith is killed.

A difficult fight for unorganized parties. To activate the statue, simply kite the invulnerable sparks(balls) around the statue. There are 5 runes, you must position one on each rune by kiting them onto the runes. Once a spark is in place on a runes, it becomes inert. To see which runes are free, watch for the shield icon around them : if present, it means this rune is occupied.

During the first phase (100%-50% health), the priestess will regularly petrify one person in the group. A debuff (purple icon) will appear first, and when it counts down to 0, the player targeted by the debuff will be petrified, unless he can get some stability up at the last second. This can be cancelled by throwing a Tear of Dwayna (environmental objects scattered about the area) on the person, and it is generally recommended that the person with the lowest damage output carry out this task.

During the second phase (50% - end), in addition to the petrification, the priestess will stealth on a regular timer (45 second cool down) and begin to heal. The five sparks will reset to their initial positions in the room, forcing the party to kite the sparks back onto the rune in the same manner as the initial statue activation. The boss will continue to heal until all the sparks return to the runes. Note that when kiting the balls, you must approach them physically (ranged attacks won't work to get their attention consistently).

2 working strategies have been reported for now:

Move the priestess somewhere where she won't interfere with the kiting. The southern wall for example, or a section of the wall roughly level to where the runes are located would also do. It is imperative that the party kites the sparks to the best of their ability. An example setup would be having one person stands north, near the entrance of the cave, who will kite the three northern sparks. A second person will stand south near the spawn location of one spark (preferably within reach of Simin) and will kite both southern sparks. Carry on to fight Simin as normal, but as soon as she stealths, these two players kite the sparks into their appropriate locations. The other 3 (including the person who repeatedly gets petrified and the one assigned to tears) fight the boss constantly, even when she's stealthed. This method takes a little bit of practice to succeed, but a little patience could go a long way, especially considering that this is the second to last boss of the dungeon.

This tactic requires a lot of dps and warriors or guardians are preferred because of close range damage. Just like the other tactic you should lure the priest away from the sparks. Hamster the tears before you do this though and one of the lowest dps in the party should do the curing of petrify. The trick is to bring her down to 50% HP so the sparks spawn, now put in 4/5 sparks. Let her regenerate so she has full health or comes out of stealth. Next, bring her down to 50% again with 4 people (and one tear thrower) and before she hits 50% and goes to stealth, one person goes to the one spark that is left, so he can put it in as soon as it spawns. If it's done, this player should go dps the boss as well. This means the priest will have very low stealth time. Now everyone has to dps as much as possible and kill her before she can stealth again, there is 45 second recharge on the stealth. Very useful in this tactic is to use the best available power+precision nourishment and best available potion of undead slaying.

NOTE: It appears now the priestess is invulnerable during the spark kiting phases. It is found best to have the full party DPS until she cloaks, then 1 person grabs the 3 sparks to the north and 1 person grabs the 2 sparks in the south as quickly as possible, then have the full party DPS until she cloaks again.

Follow the path by the champion drake and then jump in the well on the left. Swim right past the shark, and once the party returns to land a few spiders will drop down which can be skipped or fought. The path eventually leads to the final fight. There's a bonus event if you decide to go the right at the fork through the spiders, but it involves clearing a lot of pretty tough groups of linked illusionists, elementalists and hunters, and if you came that far it's likely you'll be wanting to go straight to the last boss fight.

Note that a waypoint very close to this boss, so don't be discouraged if you wipe the first time. This boss fight is considered by many to be easier than both Lupi and Simin, and involves a small element from each of the previous encounters. The bloodstone itself is stationary, but the party will be constantly under attack by firestorms (Balthazar), moving poison (Melandru), petrification (Dwayna), status effects (Lyssa), and the occasional Elite Wraith mob (Grenth).

All of these mechanics, except petrification, can be completely ignored by a party which stays in its melee range and has moderate damage output. If the latter is not the case, assign one person to throwing tears to depetrify people, another to destroy Melandru's trees, and the rest on the boss. Note that Grenth's wraith will spawn from time to time, and it is advised to focus on him with the whole team when it does.